greetings in the precious name of Jesus! as of today i am going to start a new practice. every 15 minutes of typing i am going to press the 'publish post' button and then, after 'published' i will get back in and edit and go on for another 15 minutes and do the same thing...thus limping thru my weekly communication to you 15 minutes at a time.
the reason for this is that yesterday in the last minute of a 2 hour post for this week a weird kind of page replaced my writing with a few seconds left. i could do nothing to try to save what i had typed and so time elapsed. i gave this whole thing much to God in prayer. at the core, my greatest concern was for God to take away my anger and frustration and questioning and replace it with His peace...that i would let that 2 hours go and just receive it as from the Lord. right now i think of the story of , i believe, william carey in india who at one point lost year of work on various indian languages in a fire. who can know the mind and will of the Lord. be not weary in well doing for in due season you will reap if you faint not. so by the time i got here today i was not 100% at peace but possibly near. when i came on i found that indeed nothing had (miraculously) been retained. may You be praised.
so over the last two weeks i have lost about 4 hours total due to 3 or 4 glitches, each of a different and very strange nature. may God guide me that i may not put one word down that He does not want to appear.
ct, aug. 10, p15..fewer than 30% of the world's 2.5 billion people in 1950 lived in cities. by 2050, almost 70% ..one advocate of 'glocal' ministry says, 'the heart of the spread of the gospel has always been in cities...since the days of jerusalem and antioch..cities are essential'..
bumper sticker..Jesus is coming. look busy.
p38 by rob moll a ct editor at large who came back to Jesus thru the reading of albert camus', a french existentialist in the 1940s on..and an atheist. in camus' the plague, when the city of oran is struck by disease, officials quarantine the city. the main character, the physician rieux, chooses to stay, throwing himself into caring for the sick. this is how one creates meaning amid the meaning lessness of the sudden outbreak..and life is no different, camus believed. we are to work against wrongs and injustice, with humility, trying to aid others in small ways. it is no lofty idealism. rieux describes how he first came to his philosophy in his campaign against the death penalty. in order to outlaw capital punishment, he realized, his party was on occasion forced to murder. shocked by an execution, rieux refects his activism. he realized that 'i, anyhow, had had plague thru all those long years in which , paradoxically enough, i'd believed..i was fighting it'. not only that: ' i have realized that we all have plague'.
it was this scene that struck me most forcefully. camus was right, i knew, and i, too, had plague. i was sick and in need of a Physician. camus' willingness to accept the truth that human beings are fallen allowed me to do the same. camus (Jesus?) held a mirror to my face - in a way that no pastor, preacher, or professor had - and i knew i need salvation.
the church's inability to answer the problem of suffering is still atheists' most common complaint against god and it teaches us how we may be setting people up for spiritual disappointment and failure. maybe the modern church puts too much emphasis on better living thru God. or perhaps we don't adequately eexplain that GOD SUFFERS WITH US and redeems our suffering without eliminating it. whatever the cause, atheism remains an attractive world view for those who hav witnessed suffering or been in pain and can't reconcile the idea of a good and powerful God with the reality of life on earth.
another flaw of the faith revealed by..the New Atheists, is the frequency with which christianity or any religion appears oppressive. it was no coincidence that the New Atheism exploded during the second half of the bush administration, when christians were widely perceived (correctly or not) to be using their political power to influence public policy. when some christian leaders were found to be violating their professed beliefs, whether in sexual behavior or other ethical lapses, it cast all attempts to bring christian moral arguments into the political process as hypocritical manipulations for power. (my note: the OT prophets were speakers of truth who made no attempt to protect themselves or act as power brokers in the political sphere)
most of my wandering friends..seem to have returned to Christ. but i've found athat a surprising number who had fully accepted the faith have now left it. each tended to have had some experience in which christian leaders acted as hypocritical, power hungry, judgmental, or arrogant elites. for some, the church's inability to shepherd during a painful period led directly to rejecting God. 'if god isn't there when i need him..i don't need Him'.
at heart, refection of God seems not to be a purely logical choice against the possibility or desirability of god. rather, it is often a rejection of God's people. (atheists')..deepest arguments against belief are the people they're arguing with.
reader response..this to an article on denominations..'i agree with (stetzer) that doing missionary work outside a denomination is difficult; i've lost individual support, gone into debt and at times worked while on furlough in the states. but had i gone thro a denomination i likely would not have been sent out at age 19 and wouldn't have been free to serve where God led.
although denom..missionaries have retirement plans, savings and insurance, many are deeply frustrated by the centralized control of how and where they serve. in my experience, the enom missionaries accomplish much less than the 'i hope i hav enough $ this month' nondenoms..
my note: over the past several years a longtime ideal has been metamorphizing toward something that is starting to shape the way i am living and hope to live. in matthew 6.33 Jesus makes the clear command to His disciples to 'seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things (in the context, the things that are essential to life - food and raiment) shall be added to you'.
to my understanding western missions does not follow this model but rather promotes a type of 'business model' of 'seeking prayer and $ support. i have, to this point, had the courage to speak to two missionaries about this and to challenge them to abandon the western model and follow Jesus' command. they have both rejected the counsel.
why is this? i think this is a natural consequence of the greed that is epidemic in the western church greed (lit. the desire for just a little more) moves away from Jesus clear commandment by degrees until the lives of hypocritically named 'christians' (followers of Jesus!) look no different from those in the world around them.
how has this come to be? 'christians' are no longer transformed by the regular, daily, momentary presenting of their bodies as a living sacrifice to the Lord and thus are daily being conformed (pressed into the shape of) the world system around them. who has control of this system? satan what is the dominant characteristic of it? it may appear on a continuum from appearing very good and beautiful to appearing very ugly and violently oppressive but it always excludes God while giving various impressions to the contrary. one can appear godly, but one must never obey Jesus' commands.
how is this allowed to continued? because those who take the name of pastors are hirelings and not true shepherds. true shepherds do not protect themselves. they speak truth to the flock unflinchingly and unremittingly. luther said something to the effect that no matter how much true dogma is 'believed' and espoused, if one does not speak directly to actual sins they are not true minsters of God. how true!
why do pastors (and the rest of us join them) hesitate to tell others the truth about themselves? the price is too high to pay. truth is toxic to one's 'health and welfare' in this world system. to the degree any one of us speaks truth, to that degree we are heading for personal demise, and if we persist, painful persecution and death. imagine Jesus doing all the good he did and being put to death! there is only one reason. He persisted in telling them the truth and, more fatally, the truth about themselves! i have never met, in myself, the likes of Jesus. we all seek after our own interests not those of Christ Jesus.
colson, the lost art of communication, p49 ..among today's young adults, the unwillingness to commit is alarming, clearly one result of the philosophies of the 1960s and 70s coming to full floin 1979, sociaologist robert bellah conducted extensive interviews to understand what 'habits of the heart' defined average americans. many had no sense of community or social obligation. they saw the world as a fragmented place of choice and freedom that yielded little meaning or comfort. they even seemed to have lost the language to express commitment to anything besides themselves. bellah called this 'ontological individualism' (note: not ontological suicide?) , the belief that the individual is the only source of meaning. bellah saw how this attitude would in time, unravel the church and larger society. since then, we've seen an almost uninterrupted march toward self-focus, affecting all of our institutions but especially crippling work, marriage and family...i first learned (commitment) by watching my parents care for my dying grandparents in our home. this is a custom long forgotten today, when such care is subcontracted out...
church around the world, july10..about 3 out of every 5 unchurched people in america are self'described christians, according to ..barna group survey..68% believe that God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the universe and that He still rules the universe today...35% believe the bible is totally accurate in all the principles it teaches..based on past studies..37% of unchurched americans avoid attending church services because of painful past experiences with the church or people in the church..18% claim to be bornagain christians..who ..have'made a personal commitment to Jesus..that is still important in their life today' and believe they will have eternal life with God only thru confessing their sins and acknowledging Jesus..as savior (not Lord?!)..
intercessors for america, aug. 10...why i don't pray?..I DON'T SEE IMMEDIATE RESULTS. in fact, i've prayed for so many specific things that i never saw results for at all. now i just throw out generic requests so i won't be disappointed anymore. when it comes down to it, God probably does answer my prayers. i guess i just don't like the answers of 'no' and 'not now'. i impatiently demand that god microwave my prayers. every day, the world reinforces my desire for immediate results. the kids need to get somewhere right now; i have to make payroll in 4 days; i haven't eaten all day so i am pulling into the drive-thru. waiting for answers can be excruciating. if i were honest with myself, though, i can't even count the times that i've looked back and said, 'the Lord's timing on that was perfect'. IT DOESN'T FEEL LIKE ANYONE IS LISTENING. i remember when i used to keep a prayer journal and write down requests and answers. every so often, i would look back and see how god answered my prayers. i guess he was listening. i should start doing that again. i asked god to show me answers to my prayers and it was amazing how, in the middle of my busy life, i became aware of his answers.
pro life union of southeastern pa, aug. 10..between 2002 and 9 the federal govt doled out over one billion $ to abortion groups. international PP -93.8 million; PP federation of america 657.1 million; population council - $284 million SIECUS 1.6 million; guttmacher -12.7 million; advocates for youth -8.7 milion. since obama struck down the mexico city policy 646 million went to foreign abortion organizations
planned parenthood of southeastern pa received 1.165 million of our federal taxes and 152,000 of our state taxes.
it's tuesday evening so out this goes to you. was glad to hear you had a good time at spruce lake and that at least two of you are extending vacation into this week. i hope you have a good week. love, dad
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